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Pain Therapy

Elimination of Pain

Chronic pain considerably reduces the quality of life. Therefore the aim of chronic pain therapy has to be the suppression of pain or, if this is impossible, to start treatment early enough to prevent the development of a so called “pain memory”. “Pain memory” describes the phenomenon of the pain persisting although the injury is already healed.

Due to its complexity, chronic pain requires different, complementary approaches, such as physical and psychological treatment and pharmacological therapy. This includes a wide range of pain-relieving medications (analgesics). Depending on the pain severity, different kinds of analgesics are available. For the treatment of mild pain, non-opioids are used. These are also called “peripherally acting analgesics” as they predominantly have peripheral effects. For more severe pain opioids can be applied, which are also known by the term “centrally acting analgesics” (CAA) since they primarily have a central effect (in the brain or spinal cord). In addition, so-called co-analgesics, are used when appropriate. Co-analgesics are medications whose primary indication is for a purpose other than pain relief, but that demonstrate some analgesic effects (e.g. antidepressants).